But with the release of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a whole new dystopian narrative is coming to the forefront of the cultural dialogue. The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, envisions America after a religious coup strips women of their rights and codifies them within a stiff hierarchy, largely to wrestle with the rise of infertility. In Gilead, fertile women are leased out as “handmaids” to powerful families.